There appears to be a new lease of life blowing through the landscape of Nigeria since the coming of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President.
By Abdullahi Muhammed, writing from Kano
That President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not a magician is obvious to everyone; that he is also not a Bishop or an Imam is also quite correct, but that he is not impacting the environment called Nigeria is a fallacy. Since he won elections in 2023, the country, reeling from eight disastrous years of former president Muhammadu Nuhari, was jerked back to life. Before his victory at the polls, the country was descending into an abyss, suffocating under the throes of darkness, beaten, brutalized, and almost crippled by the indescribable lethargic style of governance displayed by Muhammadu Buhari. No sector was spared. Buhari simply went to sleep, only becoming active whenever he travelled. There was palpable fear and a gathering of ominous clouds.
Hardly a day passed without some kind of sinister development. Buhari threw the country into eight years of tearful, bloody encounters full of starvation and hunger. Some political pundits may dispute this, but on the pages of the newspapers, what transpired was a catalog of lies, deception, and frustration. Stories were told of how privileged people captured the CBN and turned it into a trading arena, with millionaires made overnight, while the rest of the country wallowed in abject poverty. Into the financial lexicon crept what they called “ways and means”, a strange tactic that enabled them to bleed the country through uncontrolled and reckless borrowing. Matters got to a head when the administration attempted to block the people’s livelihood by strangulating their spending pattern cum freedom: the flow of Naira.
This was a clever strategy to restrict spending by castrating the currency, which was shocking to a bewildered nation. They groaned, cried, and desperately searched for an escape solution; they were made to cough out thousands and line up for days just to purchase what they rightly took for granted. Trouble broke out when, unable to stomach the torture and pain, the younger ones took to the streets. Though the rebellion was crushed, that further added to the insensitivity of Buhari’s regime. It was crazy that a country so blessed with mineral resources could be made to go through such needless squeeze without remorse. To cap the madness, bandits began surfacing to claim their rights and boldly invaded a Correctional Center in the heart of the Federal Capital, Kuje, and actually released scores of criminals! Unthinkable! Under Buhari, nothing was sacred.
Thankfully, his regime ended, and he left quietly into retirement. Nigerians would no longer hear of a Buhari struggling to contest an election again! Buhari was a reluctant head of state, like a horse being dragged to the river against its will! Now, all that is in the past. Tinubu has come to make a difference. A stylish man by all means, he has come to display panache and show that government is not rocket science! Tinubu walks with a swagger, receives visitors, moves around the states, takes bold decisions, acts quickly, and most often interacts with the low and mighty. Tinubu makes pronouncements and has not pretended to listen and learn. He reverses decisions that are not popular and consults a lot. Tinubu is touching lives like never before. Pensioners, for example, are having a field day. Retired directors who were earning 49,000 as their monthly pension are now smiling since their pension has been increased! From the Police, the Army, Navy, the same is the story.
Salaries, the hub and most vital part of governance, have received a huge boost. Tinubu has embarked on massive road reforms and injected funds to improve security; at least the menace of bandits and kidnappers is on his front burner, receiving the desired attention. Travelers and motorists now travel to Kaduna with reduced fear of being abducted. He should try to do the same in other areas, notably the Okene-Okpella-Auchi highway and the Benin-Sapele-Warri arterial way. Aso Rock is bubbling with foreigners trooping in, same applies to foreign investors. Abuja, the seat of government, has been given a desirable facelift. Unlike before, when it was left to decay. The collection of Nigerian passports has been decentralized and simplified.
There is a bold plan to plug leakages in the financial system, while the government itself is seen to be working! The Nigerian Customs Service has been reformed, unlike before, when a retired military officer just sat down and promoted the wrong values! The Nigerian airports are also undergoing modernization, ditto the transportation system. Importation of Petrol has been drastically reduced, and the Black-market is no longer business as usual! These are hefty introductions that are pleasant to the ears and eyes. Seeing all these, it is a wonder that some selfish Nigerians are seeking avenues to diminish these advancements. Tinubu has shown that he is largely detribalized with his fame breaching barriers. Such a leader who is so accessible, why not join hands with him and consolidate?
It is not all about politics, like some selfish politicians used to exploit. The country has outgrown this North-South dichotomy; if it worked in the days of Aminu Kano, not anymore; there is a new generation of Nigerians on the streets who are technologically crazy. The number of children having first class these days shows the direction the world is going; so it is your undoing if you still stick to tradition and the past. Social media, Facebook and Instagram do not differentiate whether you are from the north or south; Igbo or Yoruba, or Hausa. Tinubu is the physical representation of what these applications are; he doesn’t discriminate. Ask a child to plot the graph of where the country is today, and you bet, the graph is sure to produce an upward slope, indicating a lot has changed. Tinubu, in the final analysis, has done so well, and very soon he will be saying: go and look at what we did in Abuja like Lagos! Kudos to him for being a hugely positive treasure to Nigerians!
